“Poetry in the air was an awesome experience.” – Quaz

We caught up with Quaz Roodt after his Poetry In The Air showcase.

Poet MC, creative writing facilitator, poetry events organizer and father to Malik, Richard Quaz Roodt has managed to reinvent himself time and time again. Notorious for his ability to write short impactful poems, this member of the Likwid Tongue Collective shared a piece of his writing expertise with the SAfm family in the first week of the Poetry In The Air Radio Series. Hosted by Myesha Jenkins, the woman with a voice for radio.

Myesha Jenkins asks: “As somebody who does hip hop and spoken word poetry which usually entails longer poems, how is it that are you’re able to write short poems of this nature?”

Quaz explains that he encountered a moment where he was analyzing his work and he was trying to figure out what it is that he was trying to say. “A lot of it was hidden in ego and verbosity and trying to show people how smart I am as opposed to telling them how I feel or how I experienced life,” he says.

“A lot of the hip hop stuff is very ego driven. Hip Hop is the only art form that encourages you not to be wack, so from that ego driven type of writing i wanted to come back to understanding myself and to use my writing as a tool to find myself, which was a personal journey. That was a conscious deliberate thing that i did. To sit back and rethink how i want to give myself to the world and how i want to give the world to the world as i perceive and understand it”

Poetry in the air was really awesome.” Myesha is such a beautiful, gentle soul, she really cares about the art form. I love being able to share my work and thoughts on any platform, especially national radio. I’m happy that poetry is getting the type of exposure it is receiving. Coupled with the amazing and consistent work done by organizations such as WNS we can only do better and even greater with time. And yes yes yes!!! There is room for poetry on mainstream media